On Sun, 5 Nov 1995, Paul Cockshott wrote:
> I do think that to speak of the quantitative identity of profit
> and surplus value is an irrational formulation.
>
> One could express what marx was getting at in what would be
> a formally correct way by talking about a quantitaive identity
> between what profits ( in money terms ) would be if all prices
> were proportional to values and what they would be again
> in money terms if we add the constraint of an equal rate of
> profit.
>
> I also am in full agreement that one can measure relative
> values as exchange values, but not absolute values.
> One measures relative weights with kilogram weights, one
> expresses absolute masses in terms of hadron number.
>
This points up the importance of the coefficient I called the "value of
money" (hours/$) and others prefer to call the "monetary expression of
value" ($/hr) relating money and labor time magnitudes. In my work on
value theory I have (along with Gerard Dumenil) tried to argue that this
should be defined as the ratio of the living labor time to the value
added in production in a given period.
Duncan